Why I’ve Become a Minimalist

January 30, 2019

This post is going to require a bit of backstory, so bear with me:

About a year ago, before I started ousting social media from my life I used to browse Reddit on a near hourly basis. It helped me to thwart off boredom, amass memes, and build a repertoire of fun facts – which were commonly forgotten in a matter of days.

One day while adding some new subreddits to my feed, I saw one titled “Minimalism”. I assumed it was a subreddit for the minimalist art style and so I subscribed. Over the next few weeks, rather than art I saw posts like “There’s nothing in my room and it feels so empty”, “There’s nowhere to sit but my bed now”, and “I miss my torque wrench”. I thought these people were damn lunatics, throwing their stuff out, but I didn’t pay it much mind since it didn’t muddy my feed too much.

A Turning Point

Then in September of last year I had a crash that totaled my car, broke my nose, and gave me a minor concussion. In retrospect, I really could have died had there been other cars around me; but I got lucky. It put into perspective a lot of what I valued. As trite as it sounds, the line between life and death is narrower than we admit. I think it’s something I’d known but not internalized.

Yes, it’s facing the wrong way.

Following the wreck, I got rid of my PS4 because I realized it was giving me a false sense of accomplishment, I cancelled my Netflix subscription, and I deleted all of my social media apps besides YouTube. Now, if you’ve read my social media and depression post, you know that when you get rid of something that is a coping mechanism, it’s important to have something to replace it with – this is where I messed up.

Don’t laugh.

I didn’t have anything to fill my newly found time with. I just sat in my oppressive, dark blue childhood bedroom with NASCAR wallpaper still up that I never found the effort to change, doing nothing but watching YouTube and sinking a bit further into depression. On the fringe of a breakdown from having nothing to occupy my time with, I started reading and getting out of the house as much as possible.

Matt

Then one day, a video appeared in my YouTube feed titled: “A Day in the Life of a Minimalist” from a guy named Matt D’Avella. I thought: “oh boy, let’s see this”, and tapped on the video. It starts off with Matt waking up at 6 AM without an alarm clock, brushing his teeth with his finger, and using a single bowl for his cereal and coffee simultaneously, which he consumes with his only spoon while sitting on a kitchen floor devoid of furniture.

“Truly a modern jackass; making use of nothing, not even his brain cells” I thought. Just when I felt my opinion on minimalism had been wholly validated, Matt looks into the camera and tells us that this isn’t really what his day looks like – “I’m not this much of an asshole”.

Matt then shows us his real day. He has furniture, uses an alarm clock, owns kitchen utensils, and even has décor in his house. His day looks quite similar to someone who isn’t a minimalist, but there’s no time spent on things which don’t add value to his life like debating what to wear (he wears the same thing every day), browsing social media, or killing time with distractions.

I consider myself pretty industrious even if a lot of my time was formerly spent on video games; I need to at least feel as though I’m doing something. Needless to say, this seemed like the perfect day to me. Productive. Clean. Organized. He even had time to go to the gym. I didn’t pick up minimalism right off the bat, though; I was just enamored with the clean aesthetic of Matt’s videos accompanied by chillhop beats.

The Break

Then came winter break of this past year. School had kept me occupied well enough that the absence of anything substantial to do was tolerable, but now my time was all my own. There was a lot of staring at the ceiling at first. Reading and YouTube were no longer enough. Having nearly gone mad from boredom, I decided to start this blog.

I began a routine of: wake up, coffee shop to research and write, gym, work. It felt a bit empty at the start because I didn’t have much direction. Once it was a habit and the pieces for the first post fell in place, though, it felt better than doing anything else. The momentum I found in having a productive routine even motivated me to finally paint my sister’s old room and move into it.

This is where I decided I’d give minimalism a proper shot. I was going to have to transfer everything from my old room anyway, so I took the opportunity and started paring down to only what was important. Garbage bags of clothes, knick-knacks, piles of paper, and things I never used but kept “just-in-case” accumulated outside my bedroom door.

My new room is simply a bookshelf, desk, entertainment center, nightstand, and bed. I even left the closet doors off, so I can quickly access my stuff and be done with it. I don’t have a dresser; all my clothes are hung up or folded on the top rack of the closet. Everything is super fluid and I wake up free of distractions and friction.

I suppose I should tell you guys what minimalism actually is now.

Downsizing?

Minimalism is not as those few redditors and so many other people think about trying to have as few material possessions as possible. It’s about being intentional about your life in full. ‘The Minimalists’ – Josh Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus – explain that there’s a common misconception that minimalism is about “less, less, less”; it is, in fact about “more, more, more: more time, more passion, more creativity, more experiences, more contribution, more contentment, more freedom.”

Without your time, space, and money consumed by things which don’t actually bring you happiness, there’s more room for and greater focus on what’s actually important. It’s almost a system of trial and error. When your attention is applied only to a limited number of things, they’re the object of all your thought, and as a consequence you eventually dig down to the roots and acquire a greater sense for what genuinely aligns with you.

The fact that material possessions are commonly the focus of minimalism is because the American culture is one of frequent consumption and fast fashion. Shannon Whitehead says that where there used to be really only 4 clothing seasons, maybe even 2 – cold and warm, there are now 52 yearly. Ridding yourself of extraneous possessions frees your attention to only what’s important, reduces friction in your environment, and as Joshua Becker, creator of becomingminimalist.com says, makes you “focus your intentionality and force[s] [you] to ask some really difficult questions.”

Think of all of the things sitting in junk drawers that you haven’t interacted with in years, or the sweaters that you don’t like anymore but still hang in your closet, last used in 2015. The average American household has over 300,000 things in it. Who has a use for 300,000 different things?

I think that this high number is likely a consequence of the rush one gets when buying something new. It’s a source of novelty, utility, and is often times in your mind “that one thing that is going to fix this problem I have.” But as Sam Harris explains, that belonging which you were once obsessed over may eventually even become a source of dissatisfaction once the “new-and-improved” version goes on sale.

True Materialism

Juliet Schor, an economist and sociologist explains that “we are too materialistic in the everyday sense of the word, and we are not at all materialistic enough in the true sense of the word.” We have moved past valuing material things for their intrinsic value; now they are merely status symbols used to convey good taste or personal expression. Which is fine! Practically everyone uses certain belongings to express themselves.

The problem is when we consume then discard or hoard because we didn’t give proper thought into whether or not a thing is really what we wanted or needed.

This is the point that really stuck with me. How many of the objects sitting around my room were things I didn’t even like that someone else could make use of? I was holding onto some things simply for shallow sentimentality or because “it’s mine”.

My jump into minimalism wasn’t baseless, though; like any life change I make, I wanted to know nearly everything about it first. Looking into Matt’s stuff led me to the Netflix documentary he directed: Minimalism: A Documentary About the Things That Matter, which follows ‘The Minimalists’ – Josh and Ryan – as they travel across the country talking to people about their experience with Minimalism.

‘The Minimalists’ were friends and had formerly been working as managers for a large corporation both making around $50,000 a year. Ryan recounts in the documentary that he had everything he had ever wanted, yet he was miserable.

 Then one day, shortly after Josh’s mother had died and his marriage had ended (in the same month), Ryan saw Josh and noticed that he was happy. He was understandably dumbfounded that someone who had just suffered so much loss could be happy. So, one day out at lunch with Josh, he asked “why the hell are you so happy?” The answer was minimalism.

But minimalism isn’t an end, as Janell Kristina puts it in one of her YouTube videos; it’s a means to get your life to where you want it to be. Nearly all of the minimalists I listen to describe minimalism as a tool for defining what’s important to them individually.

So many people get caught up in chasing the American Dream and the standard definition of success – wealth, social prestige, celebrity – rather than defining and pursuing what they determine their life should be about. It kills your bank account, your productivity, and your sense of self. Matt had a really insightful quote in reference to advertising and the American success template: “if you don’t create your own definition of success, someone else will do it for you.”

I believe this is really the heart of minimalism. Even ‘minimalism’ might not be the best term for it, as Josh explains; it may be better called intentionalism, essentialism, or “living within your means-ism”. Because it’s truly about making choices about your habits, possessions, spending, relationships, time use, and environment with intention so that all of these things interfere with you leading a fulfilling life as little as possible.

Yours and Mine

A phrase that keeps running through my mind as I work to incorporate minimalism is “paring out all the bullshit”. I know all of what I’ve discussed may sound a tinge spiritual, and to some degree it is. “Adding meaning” to your life is pretty nebulous; it’s going to require a lot of self-exploration.

My minimalism looks like no video games (besides Super Smash Bros Melee), little-to-no TV, lots of reading, a small wardrobe, climbing, music, people, school, and working on creative projects. Yours will look completely different because it is yours.

Even starting a minimalist journey will be different for you. Throwing out possessions is likely going to be the most difficult part when you’re starting out. I think humans have a particularly strong connection to material things because the use of tools and objects has been a major component of our species’ history. But it’s something that gets easier as you do it.

Todd Glass, a comedian who was a guest on Matt’s podcast had two pieces of advice for people entering a practice of minimalism:

  1. Sometimes you’ll need something that you’ve thrown out, but that loss is worth it if you’ve ridden yourself of 95 things that you didn’t need in the process; don’t let it make you backpedal.
  2. Take pictures of sentimental belongings that you think you’d be better off without. He tells us that he looks at the pictures of the sentimental item far more often than he ever interacted with the actual thing itself.

In one of their TEDx Talks, Josh and Ryan describe the process of a “packing party” to determine what possessions are important to you. Ryan packed everything in his house into boxes as if he was moving, then unpacked only what he needed or wanted over the next three weeks. He recounts that at the end of those three weeks, 80% of his belongings were still in boxes.

Next will be defining what is valuable to you aside from the material. I am still at this point and even have some work to do with the material component, because it’s an ongoing practice. I’ve spent a lot of energy fumbling around in the dark with the “follow your passion” mantra, and I think minimalism has afforded me an alternative, more effective approach to that philosophy.

Instead of looking at the world and saying: “what do I want?”, I’ve started saying: “do I really want this?” and have begun to clear out the waste. It’s enabled me to get moving toward where I want to go.

I got rid of the things that were obscuring my view of what I wanted – video games, TV, and social media. It gave me clarity into my capacity for creating something, namely this blog and the planned YouTube channel to accompany it, as well as how productive I can be once I shed the easy routes that led me only to hollow gratification. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, and it might benefit you too. Minimalist or not, I think it’s important to try to determine what matters to you when there’s nothing there to distract you from seeing it.

References

  • Hartston, H. (2012). The case for compulsive shopping as an addiction. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs,44(1), 64-67. doi:10.1080/02791072.2012.660110
  • Otero-López, J. M., & Villardefrancos, E. (2015). Compulsive buying and life aspirations: an analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Personality and Individual Differences, 76, 166-170. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.013
  • D’Avella, M., Millburn, J. F., Nicodemus, R. (Producers) & D’Avella, M. (Director). (2016). Minimalism: a documentary about the things that matter [Motion picture]. United States.
  • http://www.becomingminimalist.com
  • https://bemorewithless.com
  • http://mnmlist.com
  • https://www.theminimalists.com

The Minmalists:

Matt D’Avella:

Janell Kristina:

*Special mention for speakers in the documentary:

  • AJ Leon
  • Courtney Carver
  • Clyde Dinkins
  • Dan Harris
  • Dave Latiluppe
  • David Friedlander
  • Jeff Sarris
  • Jesse Jacobs
  • Joshua Becker
  • Juliet Schor
  • Matt Scheinker
  • Rick Hanson
  • Sam Harris
  • Shannon Whitehead